


Kodachrome

by Vituperative_cupcakes



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Rocket is cute and won't admit it, shades of Rocket/Quill if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 22:51:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13421301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vituperative_cupcakes/pseuds/Vituperative_cupcakes
Summary: The guardians take a picture of Rocket when he's out. They think it's cute. Rocket thinks it's betrayal. Fluff ensues.





	Kodachrome

**Author's Note:**

> this is set sometime in between movies

Rocket peered around the hall. No sign of anyone. He knew for a fact that Quill was still in back, cleaning out the Orloni waste from the Milano’s airlock button, leaving him indisposed while Rocket raided his personal quarters. 

Rocket growled and scuttled over to Quill’s bed. He had fifteen minutes, tops, before Quill was done with his task. He intended to put them to good use while tearing up Quill’s room.

 

What kicked it off was this: during a routine job on some backwater planet, Rocket had taken fire right to the cybernetic implants. He was knocked offline for a whole day and woke up in the medbay. This was nothing, he had crawled his way back from the brink of death more times than he could count. To see all those losers hovering over him as he rejoined the land of the conscious was almost a welcome sight, so Rocket dialed the jerk down a notch or two.

“How’s my favorite a-holes?” he groaned and put a paw to his temple. “Whoever hit me with the spaceship, you’re on Groot duty for a month.”

Gamora smiled, taking the statement in stride. “You took a blast right to your upper left quadrant.” She tapped a hoverscreen to illustrate the area. “You should be sore for a while, but you’re made of tough stuff so you should bounce right back.”

“Sure. I always do, don’t I?” Rocket groaned as he sat up. Quill shot out a hand to assist him, and since it turned out to be quite useful Rocket generously decided not to bite.

“It is good to see you recover, little furry companion,” Drax said, “seeing you indisposed gave us all cause for worry.”

“Yes,” Gamora said, switching to a slightly scolding tone, “you need to watch your back more in a firefight.”

“Yeah,” Quill piped up, “I had to carry you back to the ship.”

That was what did it. A strange undercurrent lanced through the others. Gamora shifted in her place and pressed her lips together as if stifling a smile. Drax gave a knowing chuckle. Quill looked down at Rocket in a way he didn’t really care for.

“So...what are you not telling me?” Rocket asked slowly. None of them would make eye contact except for Quill, who made entirely too much eye contact.

“Nothing,” Gamora said. Her voice strained slightly. Quill looked smug.

“What, did you shave a patch of my fur?” Rocket began frantically patting his pelt. “I swear, if it says what I think it says—”

“It’s nothing,” Gamora said, “we just...we took a picture.”

Rocket stilled his hands and let that trickle through his brain. “You...what?”

“On the way back to the ship. It’s no biggie.” Quill was just barely holding in a laugh, the bastard. “You were just so cute.”

That touched off a round of stifled giggles. Rocket looked from one companion to the other, jaw dropped open in betrayal.

“I’m  _ cute? _ I’m cute when I'm injured to you d’ast idiots?”

Gamora recovered first, chasing the whimsy from her demeanor. She reached for him “Rocket,  we—”

Rocket snapped at her finger, making all three of them recoil. Good.

“Dude!” Quill looked at him. “It’s not like she did anything to you.”

“That is true, I held the camera,” Drax said.

“Well, whoop-de-shit,” Rocket snarled. He hopped to his feet, ignoring the pain it brought. “I hope you dumbasses enjoyed your laugh, because it’s the last one you’re scoring off me.”

“Rocket—”

“Come on, dude—”

Rocket stalked to the comm station, where they knew well enough to leave him by himself. Good, great. Now he could formulate his revenge. 

Rocket settled on Peter as the outlet for his rage, because Quill was undoubtedly the ringleader. He’d picked Rocket up when he couldn’t defend himself, he’d probably asked them to take the picture. Rocket would make an example out of him.

Besides, not that he’d ever admit it, Peter’s betrayal stung the worst. If Rocket was being 110% honest, he liked the big, stupid terran a little. 

...Okay, a lot. They had the most in common out of all the shipmates (save Groot) and he was always the most tolerant of Rocket’s hairbrained schemes. It hurt because he acted all understanding and then turned around and did... _ this _ .

 

Rocket rifled through Quill’s belongings. How many flarking t-shirts could one grown man own? Rocket found the shirt Quill had been wearing during the skirmish. There was blood on the lower portion. Rocket pressed his nose to the stain. It was  _ his  _ blood. Pete had scooped him up when he was bleeding and hurt and immortalized the moment with a friggin’ selfie.

Rocket bared his teeth. The shirt, bearing a slogan for a Xandarian soft drink, was a pile of ribbons when he finished with it.

Rocket stewed as he rooted through Quill’s drawers. It wasn’t just the betrayal, although that stung like hell, it was the  _ cute  _ part. Animals were cute. Those stupid geegaws that Yondu lined the console with were cute. Cute things had no agency. Cute things could be discarded when you got tired of them. Rocket would show them who was cute.

Ten minutes in, and Quill’s room looked like the ship had crashed. No matter. Rocket had decided, in these past minutes, to jump ship for a while so he didn’t have to see the aftermath. Let them know what they were missing, and then let them know exactly who they crossed when he came back.  _ If  _ he ever came back.

Rocket’s self-pitying daydream dissolved when he noticed a panel whose edge just stuck out from the bulkhead surface. A hume would probably need a screwdriver or something to pry it out, but something with tiny, clever fingers could get it open without help.

The panel rattled to the floor. Rocket sneered at the tiny space. Aww, Quill had a little pocket to hide all his pwecious things. He saw the Awesome mix tape, vol. 1 and his fingers itched. Was that a line he dared to cross? As he debated with himself, his gaze fell on something else that occupied the space. Was that—was he really— _ Peter kept the d’ast thing in his stupid little secret cupboard! _

Teeth bare in fierce joy, Rocket pulled the holosnap from the space and looked at it. His whiskers drooped.

When they’d said  _ picture _ , his imagination had cooked up something like the pictures back at the lab taken of his vivisected body. Cold, impersonal, and humiliating.

But there he was, laying in the lower half of the screen. Rocket never had many pictures of himself (hell, he didn’t even like looking in the mirror too much) but there was something...soft about this one. He lay cradled in Quill’s arms, vulnerable but not exposed. Someone had taken his flack jacket off and draped it over him, like he had fallen asleep sitting at the comm station. 

And then there was Quill.

Save for Gamora’s hand on Pete’s shoulder, the rest of the frame was all Quill. He gazed down at Rocket with such...Rocket couldn’t think of a term. Fondness? Yeah, as much as it chafed to admit it, Pete really did look like he cared. Tenderness? Urgh, gut-churning but true. Fear, hope, worry? Yep, all present and accounted for. Pete didn’t even look like he cared about all the blood that was getting on his shirt. Hadn’t once mentioned it, now that Rocket thought back. All Pete in the picture was concerned about was the tiny furry body in his arms, the one who looked like a person and not like a test subject on a slab.

“I think that’s my favorite one of you.” 

The sudden voice jolted Rocket. How long had he been standing here like an idiot? He whipped around to find Quill standing there in the flesh, smiling. He didn’t look angry at the shambles his living space had become, he just smiled down at Rocket like they were the only things that existed. Rocket laid his ears back on his head.

“Drax took a few, just a few because for a second there we were scairt you wouldn’t make it. That one is the best. You know—” Pete got down on one knee, “this was the first time I think I've actually seen you relaxed. Even when you’re down, you’re bouncing all over the walls. But there, you just look like you’re sleeping.” His fingertip grazed the image, which fuzzed under the pressure. “Sorry, it was just too tempting to pass up. Promise I won’t show it to any hot chicks or nothin’.”

Rocket opened and closed his mouth. He tried to say “sorry about your room,” but it came out as, “why the hell would you keep a picture of me next to that stupid tape you care way too much about?”

He expected Peter to jab back, wanted him to because then it would mean that they were in familiar territory again. Rocket could handle insults. Rocket knew insults. But Pete just shrugged with one shoulder.

“‘Cause they both bring me up. I like to hold onto things that do that.”

“What, seeing me hurt brings you up?”

“Nope. Seeing you safe like this, where nothing else can hurt you, that just gives me a fuzzy feeling I guess.”

Rocket’s eyes were watering, probably from space dust. He had allergies to the stuff, that was why his chest felt tight as Peter came around and sat on the bed next to him.

Space allergies were probably responsible for his next sentence: “well, whatever you say, I'm not cute.”

Peter chuckled. “No, Rocket, you’re right. You’re not cute.”

“Finally.”

“You’re adorable.”

Rocket nudged him, not too hard, with his elbow. “Ahh, you’re an a-hole.” 

“Yup. The a-hole that saved your life.”

That he was. Rocket would let him drop his pudgy human arm around his shoulders for a bit, only because of that. After a while he would shove that arm right off because he didn’t need no stinkin’ sympathy, especially from a big, dumb terran. 

In a minute.


End file.
